A refrigerating cycle device has been applied to an air conditioner for heating or cooling a room, and a refrigerating unit such as a refrigerator and a refrigerating showcase. Recently, the refrigerating cycle device has been also applied to a heat pump water heater. Such a refrigerating cycle device includes a refrigerant compressor to be built therein, and circulates an HFC system refrigerant, an HC system refrigerant, a natural refrigerant such as CO2, or the like.
A refrigerant compressor described in PTL 1 has been known. This conventional refrigerant compressor houses an electric motor and a compression mechanism connected to the electric motor via a rotating shaft in a sealed case. The compression mechanism is provided with a cylinder in which an eccentric roller is arranged, and a front edge of a vane as a sliding member is elastically brought into contact with a periphery of the eccentric roller. When the eccentric roller is driven and rotated by the electric motor, the eccentric roller and the vane slide relative to each other.
In such a case, a coated layer including an amorphous carbon layer is formed on a surface of the vane in order to prevent the surface of the vane from being abraded due to the sliding of the eccentric roller and the vane.
In addition, the conventional refrigerant compressor described in PTL 1 is provided with the amorphous carbon layer as a coated layer formed on a surface of a single-layer or double-layer vane. When the amorphous carbon layer has a double-layered structure, a lower layer (at a base material side) is an amorphous carbon layer containing hydrogen, and an upper layer is an amorphous carbon layer containing metals.
Moreover, a nitride layer is formed on a surface of the base material of the vane, an intermediate layer is formed on the nitride layer, and the amorphous carbon layer is formed on the intermediate layer. The nitride layer and the intermediate layer are formed so that a hardness difference between the base material and the amorphous carbon layer is gently changed. As a result of reducing the hardness differences between the nitride layer and the intermediate layer and between the intermediate layer and the amorphous carbon layer, adhesiveness therebetween is improved. Accordingly, the amorphous carbon layer is prevented from being delaminated from the surface of the vane.